Well to begin with we must know that what a Drug is! It is a substance that is used as a medicine or narcotics. Drug does different things for different people. Few use it as a substance that treats, prevents or alleviates the symptoms of a disease. While others use it as a narcotic that produces numbness or stupor.
It is a journey from experimentation to addiction. More and more people are resorting to drugs. Growing number of youth is forsaking the bottle in favor of drugs as a way of escaping their problems. When people become addicted to drugs, it becomes an abuse. Proliferation of illicit drugs has increased over the recent years. It has infiltrated into our society and every other person you meet is either vulnerable to drugs or is already into the cycle of addiction.
But how does it all start?
Adolescence is a tricky stop between childhood and adulthood in which a new identity has to be found, major decisions have to be made and great responsibilities have to be taken on. And when in adolescence your friends start replacing family as a social support mechanism as you movetowards greater individuality. And this is where the story starts for most. You want to be a significant part of your group and if the group norm stands yes for Drug, in peer pressure you go for it.
Exams, pressure to perform well, pressure from parents, peer pressure... you need a break, your friends know the method to distress and you start walking the same road to find your way of shunning the stress.
If not this, then curiosity or the will to try everything or your perception of openness or being broadminded…’so what trying once is not going to harm! One should try everything in life.’ This attitude itself can lead you the journey of drug abuse.
And once you try it, Oh! The cloud nine experience pulls you back to it, whenever you want to de-stress. One time becomes two times, two times become three times and once the rubber band of limits is stretched, it continues to stretch, stretch and stretch. Everything seems perfect in the beginning but gradually you find yourself in a sorry state. It is the time when realization dawns, that you are trapped into the cycle of addiction.
Until this time you were doing drugs, but now drugs start taking toll of you. And this is your journey from use to abuse.
Lo! What to do now?
For an addict it’s a long, strugling road to de- addiction. But for all those adolescents, it time to introspect…
What do you choose… Short term fun or long term prosperous living?
What do you choose… Temporary escape from problems or permanent solutions for life?
What do you choose… Life or drugs?’
Your courage to say ‘NO’ to shortcuts, ‘NO’ to peer pressure, ‘NO’ to drugs is all that matters.
Say No and put a full stop to the journey of use to abuse.
